The StarCraft II Website has an apology to players from Blizzard over their failure to live up to a promise for a paid service to allow name changes in StarCraft II, saying as a result of delays in rolling this out, they have added a free name change to everyone's account in the RTS sequel. Word is: "We’re planning to offer another free name change to all players when the new Clans feature goes live in the next couple of months, so don’t worry about removing your clan tag from your character name with this one. We will alert you to that when the time comes." There's no word in how much it is costing them to go through the vast expense of changing character names for nothing.

Kajetan wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 13:10:When you charge your customer for a simple SQL statement, which doesn't involve any Blizzard employee besides the inital one time feature write, be sure to make GOOD excuses when this paid "service" doesn't work as advertised.

You seem to be bitter that they're charging for a simple SQL statement that requires no human intervention. Do you think they invented this concept?

Cyanotetyphas wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 17:02:Being in the MMO business trashed this company

Well that and activision.

Seriously, them giving up independence, and merging with Activision was when the downward trend really came on strong. Until then, they were a solid company. Now it's about how to maximize profit, at the expense of everything else. Just look at Diablo 3.

Blizzard hasn't been independent since Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. Davidson and Associates, to Sierra, to Vivendi who techically owns the majority stake in ActivisionBlizzard.

Cyanotetyphas wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 17:02:Being in the MMO business trashed this company

Well that and activision.

Seriously, them giving up independence, and merging with Activision was when the downward trend really came on strong. Until then, they were a solid company. Now it's about how to maximize profit, at the expense of everything else. Just look at Diablo 3.

Wow how generous. Keep in mind when SC2 came out they weren't very forthcoming about the fact that your User Profile name was also your BNET name so when you entered ASSBUTT on the first screen just to try to play some singleplayer, congratulations you were Sir Assbutt to your friends forever.

jdreyer wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 14:20:Is there some practical reason to charge for namechanges? Aside from greed, I mean. Maybe consistency lets players more easily keep track of who they have played against?

Usually the cost is to prevent people from harassing others, changing their name, harassing more people, changing their name, harassing even more people...

Yes, but if everyone has a unique Bnet id what does it matter because if you've got them on ignore they stay ignored regardless. So yeah, this is about greed as is everything else with Actiblizz.

"We choose the right to be who we are. We know the difference between the reality of freedom and the illusion of freedom."

jdreyer wrote on Jan 13, 2013, 14:20:Is there some practical reason to charge for namechanges? Aside from greed, I mean. Maybe consistency lets players more easily keep track of who they have played against?

Usually the cost is to prevent people from harassing others, changing their name, harassing more people, changing their name, harassing even more people...

When you charge your customer for a simple SQL statement, which doesn't involve any Blizzard employee besides the inital one time feature write, be sure to make GOOD excuses when this paid "service" doesn't work as advertised.